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POLL: Favourite Fortean Subject?

What's your favourite Fortean subject?

  • Ghosts

    Votes: 10 33.3%
  • Cryptozoology

    Votes: 5 16.7%
  • Urban legends / folklore

    Votes: 3 10.0%
  • Ufology

    Votes: 2 6.7%
  • Magic(k) and the occult

    Votes: 1 3.3%
  • Earth science

    Votes: 0 0.0%
  • New science/strange science

    Votes: 2 6.7%
  • Religon & cults

    Votes: 0 0.0%
  • Conspiracies

    Votes: 2 6.7%
  • Parapsychology

    Votes: 0 0.0%
  • Other

    Votes: 5 16.7%

  • Total voters
    30
I could have easily checked every last category, including "Other."

So I chose "Ghosts," due to the fact that my overriding interest in all forms of Forteanism and the paranormal has always been a search for evidences indicative of human survival. Now if you ask me what in the world out-of-place kangaroos in the Little Egypt section of Southern Illinois have to do with the survival of the human consciousness I'd be really hard-pressed to supply you with an articulate answer - but the clue's buried in there SOMEPLACE.
 
I find MIB's fascinating, but doesn't care too much for UFO's.
In general I find reports of strange people and beings interesting, like humanoids, cloaked beings, stickmen, shadow people, local monsters/creatures and MIB's. If there's a photo with the story that's even better of course.
 
SameOldVardoger said:
"....humanoids, cloaked beings, stickmen, shadow people, local monsters/creatures and MIB's."

I keep reports of cloaked and hooded entities in a large general file titled "Grim Reaper." Many such beings also exhibit "Shadow People" charateristics so they go to that file also.

I too find "Stick Men" reports fascinating. Because of their strong insectoid connections I file them under "Insects, Weird and Paranormal."
 
Have voted for parapsychology 'cos, although im fascinated by all types of forteana, I feel it may help to explain other areas and types, as well as the fact Im interested in the psychological aspects of the fortean/ individuals relationship with the fortean experiences, and cos parapsychology tends to be more scientific in its understanding of phenomena (although this aint always the case ;) )

But also love topics like magic and occult cos their the complete opposite...
 
I for one like talking dogs that explode in a puff of green smoke. Does that constitute a seperate category?
 
I think that's my favourite too--the real "high strangeness" stuff which doesn't fall into an easy category. Also love reading about shadow people, stick men, staircase/landing weirdness...
 
Leaferne said:
....the real "high strangeness" stuff which doesn't fall into an easy category....

That's why I find myself saving a given news report or account to as many as seven or eight different files.

Give me the "high strangeness" and "Oz factor" stuff.

By the way, the fact that North Americans tend to use "high strangeness" and the Brits "Oz factor" (L. Frank Baum was obviously an American) always strikes me as a little Fortean in itself.
 
I think it was Jenny Randles who popularized the term "Oz Factor" but now you've got me curious--who used the term first? Keel?

OTR, please don't take this the wrong way but I would LOVE to have a shuffle through those files of yours sometime!
 
Leaferne said:
OTR, please don't take this the wrong way but I would LOVE to have a shuffle through those files of yours sometime!

Now how could I possibly take that wrong?

I assumed that Jenny Randles INVENTED the term "Oz Factor." But might it have been somebody else? Keel, as you suggest?

By the way, nobody knows for certain where L. Frank Baum came up with the name Oz. The two main theories are that he was a great fan of Charles "bOZ" Dickens and/or that he owned a two volume dictionory, divided into A-N and O-Z.

Or maybe that's what the Space Brothers from Strontium Six called him....
 
Peni would know!

Wiki says Randles coined the phrase "Oz Factor". Didn't Keel describe a similar phenomenon though? *answers self* Actually, he probably did; I just don't know if he gave it a discrete name. Damn, and I think my brother stole my Mothman book.

I think Bannik used the term "high strangeness" and I'm pretty sure he's one o'dem overseas people. :)

This page attributes the term "high strangeness" to Dr. J. Allen Hynek who addressed the United Nations on the subject of UFOs on November 27, 1978.
 
It was definitely Randles who coined "Oz Factor" - I've got a book somewhere or other in which she claims the credit for doing so. In Mothman Prophecies Keel talks about UFO percipients entering a "hypnotic-like trance" - which I guess is roughly analogous to the Oz Factor.
 
What's your favourite Fortean subject?

What became of anomalies? FT used to do them and they just happen to be my favourite. Including them with science is not really the answer as some are anti-science. It would also mean the “science minded” among us would have to play away for a change.
 
Leaferne said:
I think Bannik used the term "high strangeness" and I'm pretty sure he's one o'dem overseas people. :)
I'm one of those over-mountains-of-toxic-sludge people (from New Jersey). I use "high-strangeness" because it refers (I think) to the contents of the experience (dancing cows, pancake-cookin' aliens, etc.) while "oz factor" refers more to the receptive mind-set of the percipient. Granted the two usually go hand in hand but I think they refer to two seperate aspects of the same phenomena.
 
Bannik said:
Leaferne said:
I think Bannik used the term "high strangeness" and I'm pretty sure he's one o'dem overseas people. :)
I'm one of those over-mountains-of-toxic-sludge people (from New Jersey). I use "high-strangeness" because it refers (I think) to the contents of the experience (dancing cows, pancake-cookin' aliens, etc.) while "oz factor" refers more to the receptive mind-set of the percipient. Granted the two usually go hand in hand but I think they refer to two seperate aspects of the same phenomena.

Oops, my apologies Bannik! Er, not that there's anything wrong with being one o'dem overseas people, of course. :)
 
I'm getting into "Extreme Strangeness". (Or "X-treem") It's big with the kids at the moment.
 
Anome_ said:
I'm getting into "Extreme Strangeness". (Or "X-treem") It's big with the kids at the moment.

Is that like extreme ironing?
 
Yeah, the major problem with my chosen category of folklore/urban legend is that when people retell a story (when it begins going through the folk process) they feel the need to force it to make sense. The eyewitness accounts of dancing cows and aliens bringing pancakes have an immediacy, absurdity, and realism which is lacking in the well-polished Phantom Hitchhiker narrative.

BTW, Peni doesn't actually know for a fact where the name "OZ" came from, but the story told in publicity materials during Baum's lifetime was that he was searching for a name and spotted the easy pronouncability of the label on his second file cabinet. This is certainly possible and is presumably the story Baum himself told his marketing people. However, it has always sounded to me like the sort of glib explanatory fable authors tell because other people insist on reasons and sources for artifacts that your brain threw out with no particular effort when you needed something. So much of creation happens while you're not looking that authors don't worry about it much. He needed a name and he pulled one out of the air. The air's full of stuff like that, if you're paying attention.

If you want to see someone sigh and roll her eyes, ask an author where she gets her ideas. I know people who explain about the idea tree in the back yard, or the idea store, or trading with the little gnomes who dig up the idea ore. Pullman had his garden shed (and didn't he get tired of that one!). I always say: "Same place you do," because everybody's having ideas all the time. It's just a question of whether you do anything with them, or can tell the difference between the ones with expansion potential and the one-offs.
 
Bump ...

The poll results were lost somewhere along the way, so I'm re-booting the poll.
 
Voted for 'Other' cos I wasn't sure what category my favourite stuff is in, which includes things like Time / Dimensional Slips and Men In Human Suits, stuff of that ilk, that's my favourite.

EDIT: and the dancing cows. Thanks escargot.
 
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Man, the dancing cows are awesome! That's my favorite flavor of weird, for sure.

Timeslips are fun. I do wonder if some people who fall down that kind of rabbit hole get stuck there, though. Maybe they try to contact someone for help, using their cell phones, and end up in mysterious photos that we roll our eyes at.
 
Mine are the probably unsolvable mysteries: the Flannan Lighthouse, DB Cooper, Lord Lucan, the Mary Celeste et al. So another vote for 'other'!
 
What about the dancing cows though?

The dancing cows.

And of course, yes, the dancing cows. How could I forget. Nothing has truly been that bizarre, seriously.

I have edited my post ;)


Man, the dancing cows are awesome! That's my favorite flavor of weird, for sure.

Timeslips are fun. I do wonder if some people who fall down that kind of rabbit hole get stuck there, though. Maybe they try to contact someone for help, using their cell phones, and end up in mysterious photos that we roll our eyes at.

There was a really good one about a shoplifter who, upon being chased by a security guard, ran into a 1960s street, newspapers showed the date and everything. He turned around and could see back to the security guard (who would later state that the shoplifter disappeared in the alleyway). The shoplifter seemingly had a choice to stay in 1960s or go back. He went back.
 
so.... which caregory does earth mysteries come under?
 
I went for ghosts, simply because I'm intrigued by the back stories. But there's very few topics I'm not interested in! Except conspiracies, which I'm a bit 'meh' about.
 
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